


i dream of the other days

by strangetowns



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 01:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17070974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: This was one thing he’d forgotten, somehow. The way Sirius could be so careless with his words, yet so careful with everything else.-Or: As Sirius and Remus prepare for a second war, Remus wages his own war against the silence.





	i dream of the other days

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty straightforward “Sirius lies low at Lupin’s” fic, taking place between GOF and OOTP. I’m sure this concept has been done a million times already but I really wanted to do my own take on it, so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Quick note on canon that I’ve only read the main 7 books/seen the core movies as far as canon goes, I haven’t read any of the extra info on Pottermore or anything so this is just my interpretation of their relationship as we see it in the books!
> 
> My thanks, as always, to [Arin](http://arindwell.tumblr.com/) and [Lyds](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/) for being the best beta readers in the world. Title is from “[Red Planet](https://youtu.be/-_v96qs-wYU)” by Alvvays. I mostly wrote this fic to this [wolfstar playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/strange-towns/playlist/4qZzJ08ysNvDuD0yRWPNzG?si=iginmHfiQ5igp7R712Ndxg) I made, in case you want to check that out for extra feels.

There was a knock on the door - more like two loud thumps, really - and as Remus’s eyes flew toward it, heartbeat instantaneously kicking up an unwanted storm in his chest, he had to remind himself he already knew exactly what to expect when he opened it. No one ever called on him, these days, let alone at this hour of the night. And he already got his orders hours ago.

Still - there was nothing he could do to prevent the ice that dropped to the pit of his stomach when he undid the latch with fingers he told himself weren’t shaking and let the door swing open to reveal a great black dog sitting on the step. Sheer familiarity lanced through his body at the sight, unbidden. It ached.

Before Remus could say anything -  _ How’s your night been? _ Or  _ I hope the journey wasn’t too long _ , or, simply,  _ Padfoot _ , which then again might be the least simple thing to say of all - the dog tilted his head up and whined, low and long in his throat.

“All right, all right,” Remus muttered, stepping aside. “In you go, then.”

The dog streaked into the house in loping steps, and in the time Remus swung the door shut behind him he’d already disappeared into the kitchen. Remus leaned his forehead against the door, shutting his eyes and swallowing hard. The swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach had nothing to do with disappointment.

It didn’t.

By the time Remus had pulled himself together enough to venture into the kitchen himself, there was already a man sitting sideways in a chair at his table, arm sprawled carelessly over the back of it. He bent his elbow and rested his chin on his hand, regarding Remus’s entrance with an unwavering focus in his gaze, that particular way of his that had always felt so personal, so strangely intimate. Like he was drinking in all the details he could, like there was nothing else in the entire world that could hold his attention in this moment. The intensity of it was so great Remus almost wanted to look away.

But of course he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t.

“Good morning, Sirius,” Remus said.

Sirius’s eyes widened. “Is it really?” The words seemed to burst right out of him, jarring in contrast to the stubborn silence of just a few seconds ago, but he didn’t seem embarrassed. He glanced at the kitchen clock - a little past two in the morning - and let out a long, seeping sigh, bringing his knuckles to his eyes and rubbing tiredly. “But hell, it’s been a long night.”

He was exhausted, that much was certain, obvious from the sag in his shoulders and the shadows smudged under his eyes. The emptiness in his eyes Remus wasn’t sure would ever go away. 

He was relatively clean, though, less gaunt compared to the last time Remus saw him even if he was just as pale. It had been nearly a year since then, so Remus couldn’t bring himself to feel too guilty about observing Sirius right now, not really. He was just making up for lost time, wasn’t he? He had a vague idea of what had happened in that missing gap, a patchwork of guesses strung together through erratically delivered letters from exotic birds and strange owls, never the same creature twice, but the truth of the matter was that he didn’t know everything. He hardly knew anything, in fact. 

Theoretically, he was perfectly fine with that - he had no right to feel otherwise - but it was still a bit of a shock to sweep his eyes over this man, the closest thing he had to a proper friend right then, and know that he didn’t quite understand how he got here, and probably never would.

Remus nodded slowly. “Harry’s okay, though?”

“He’s alive,” Sirius said, and Remus understood. It wasn’t exactly the same thing, not always.

“You’ve made the rounds, then,” Remus said.

Sirius nodded. It was only logical, of course, that Remus’s house would be the last stop on his list of orders from Dumbledore. And of course he already knew that it would be. Still, his stomach twisted a little at the thought, and there was no pretending he didn’t know why.

“Do you - ” Remus hesitated. “Do you want some tea?”

Sirius shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said. “I should probably go to bed soon, actually.”

“You can take mine,” Remus said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sirius said at once, almost like he’d already known what Remus was going to say. But then again, it wasn’t like that was anything new.

And the thing was, Remus wasn’t young anymore. He knew better than to put up a fight with Sirius, even about something as small as this. There were more important things to think about, these days. More important battles to save his energy for. So he didn’t waste his words, or his time. He’d already done enough of that for a whole lifetime, and more.

Instead, he walked over to Sirius, and put a hand on his shoulder. Sirius stiffened, and for a moment Remus almost pulled away in a panic. Was it too much too soon? Had he crossed a line? He’d never worried about lines, when they were younger. He hadn’t even thought they existed.

But Sirius tilted his head back to meet Remus’s gaze, and there was no surprise there, in his open eyes. It had been a year - actually, it’d been a lot of those - but somehow Remus understood why, understood completely. It was almost like muscle memory, the wordlessness between them. Almost like a dream. The silence felt so familiar it was almost like he was a teenager again, young and reckless and bolstered with the confidence that there wasn’t a thing that could come between this - between them.

Thirteen years hadn’t been nearly enough time to make him forget something like that.

So in the end, he kept the touch simple, because that was all they’d ever needed, he and Sirius. He didn’t smile; he didn’t speak. He just tilted his head, and knew that Sirius understood.

The feeling of that was familiar to him, too.

-

Some time later Remus walked into the sitting room, armed with a blanket and two pillows. Sirius was already sprawled across the sofa, arm thrown over his eyes.

For a brief moment, Remus wondered if he’d fallen asleep already - he wouldn’t be surprised, all things considered - but as he approached, Sirius lowered his arm. His eyes were still closed.

“Thanks,” Sirius said as Remus walked to the side of the sofa and put his burden down at Sirius’s head.

Remus wanted to tell him there was no place for words like that, not in this house, not between them. Words didn’t exist for the explanations, though, so instead, he let his lips twitch into a smile. “You didn’t think I’d let you freeze to death, did you?” 

“No,” Sirius said. “I never had a doubt.”

So casual, those words, so nonchalant was his tone, but Remus couldn’t find them casual at all.

He put his hands on the arm of the sofa and leaned his weight on them, so that his face hovered over Sirius’s head. “I’m glad,” he said softly.

As he moved to lean away, Sirius’s eyes flashed open. They caught Remus’s gaze, as easy as always, and they didn’t let go.

The silence notched itself somewhere in his throat.

There was a motion at the corner of his eye. Slow, hesitant. A hand reaching out. He didn’t look away from Sirius - couldn’t - but he could feel it as it happened. The motion through the air, as Sirius’s fingertips paused an inch away from his temple. Not touching, though. Never touching. If he concentrated, he could almost feel the warmth in the space between his skin and Sirius’s; very nearly.

All the while, Sirius didn’t look away. There was a question there in his eyes, the quiet line of his mouth. Remus didn’t know what it was. Just that it was there.

This was one thing he’d forgotten, somehow. The way Sirius could be so careless with his words, yet so careful with everything else.

“You’re going grey, Moony,” Sirius whispered.

A heartbeat passed, and then another; and all was motionless.

“What about you?” Remus said.

Barely a flicker in Sirius’s expression. If Remus knew him even a little less, he probably would have missed it entirely.

“What about me?” Sirius said.

“You’ve gone grey, too,” Remus said.

Sirius snorted. His hand dropped down to his side. “I’ve not a single silver hair on my head, thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Remus said.

He wondered if Sirius would ask what he did mean, but Sirius didn’t even blink.

“No,” he said instead. “I don’t suppose it was.”

Remus let out his breath. 

“Sleep well, Sirius,” he said.

Nothing changed in Sirius’s face or his eyes, this time. Not even a flicker.

“You, too,” he said.

At last, Remus turned away. It was only when he left the room that he realized his hands had been shaking the whole time.

-

Sirius was already in the kitchen by the time Remus got up, which was the most surprising thing he’d done in Remus’s house yet. The kettle was on the stovetop, and eggs and bacon were frying in a small skillet next to it. He was circling around the kitchen when Remus came in, idly examining the contents of the cabinets and the fridge. Remus watched him for a bit, as he picked up jars and turned them in his hands and put them back carefully where he found them.

“Sirius Black, up before noon?” Remus said. “I must be dreaming.”

Sirius turned his head to smile at Remus, a brief expression that was gone almost as quickly as it came. “I don’t sleep much these days,” he said, in his usual offhand manner. Remus felt the statement like a swift punch to the gut, just as effortless.

Remus nodded toward the stove, more as a distraction than anything else. “I appreciate that I didn’t have to tell you to help yourself.”

“I reckoned making breakfast is a fine way to try to get back into your good graces,” Sirius said. His smile this time lasted a few beats longer.

_ You never left them _ , Remus didn’t say, because honestly, that would be a lie.

“You know me so well,” he answered instead. “It smells wonderful.”

“Sit down, then,” Sirius said with a wave of his hand. “Let me serve you.”

“I thought you were  _ my _ guest,” Remus pointed out as he sat at the table.

Sirius shrugged. Remus read his meaning in his shoulders -  _ as if that ever mattered _ . And he supposed it never had, not for Sirius. Go figure, honestly.

It took several minutes for breakfast to truly be ready - Sirius had decided to prepare it the muggle way, for some reason, painstakingly arranging toast next to carefully scooped eggs on each plate and pouring out tea with both hands - but soon enough there was a full plate of food in front of Remus. He watched, too, as Sirius leaned over to stir two spoonfuls of sugar in Remus’s tea, slow and deliberate. Part of him wanted to ask Sirius why he thought he still took his tea this way, but there wouldn’t really be a point. A lot could change in the course of over a decade, and it had, but his taste in tea was one of the things that hadn’t.

Remus tried not to think about that too much.

“I can’t tell you how glorious it is,” Sirius said as he leaned back in his seat, a shadow of his trademark grandiosity from his younger years coloring his words, “to finally be eating real food in a real house.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Remus said. “And just wait until you take a real shower.”

“Merlin’s beard,” Sirius said solemnly. “I hadn’t even thought of that.” He wrapped his hands around his mug and let out a contented sigh. “One thing at a time, though.”

_ You’ve got all the time in the world _ , Remus almost said, but he didn’t; he couldn’t. That would be a lie too.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Remus said. “For these next few days? Or weeks, or - or however long.”

Sirius leaned his head back, turning his eyes to the ceiling in thought. “Stand by for Dumbledore’s orders, I guess. I don’t know that there’s much of a plan beyond that. I don’t think he wants me going out too much right now.” Predictably, he didn’t sound too happy about that. “As for how long…” Here, a rare beat of hesitation. “However long you’re okay with me being here, I’d say.”

He straightened to meet Remus’s eyes. Remus was a little jealous, admittedly, of how easy that simple action seemed to come to him. Remus couldn’t even begin to relate.

“You can stay for as long as you need to,” Remus said. Thirteen years prior, he’d probably think this was something that went without saying. He knew better, these days.

Still, Sirius nodded as if it was an answer he’d been expecting. There was a long silence as he contemplated his tea. 

“And what about for as long as I want to?” he said to his cup.

Remus blinked at him, thrown. “Well, of course,” he said, mostly because he didn’t know what else to say to that. Sirius might be adept at knowing what Remus was thinking - sometimes as a teenager Remus even wondered if Sirius was better at Legilimency than he let on - but Remus couldn’t say the same about the other way around. It reminded him of his teenage years in an uncomfortable way, the way Remus always felt like Sirius was one, two, three steps ahead of him. He never really minded back then - at least, until he did. And by then it was too late. 

He couldn’t say he knew if he minded it now or not. He couldn’t say he knew a lot of things when it came to Sirius Black, though it felt like he should.

Sirius ducked his head down, hair falling around his face. “I just wanted to make sure,” he said. “It’s not always the same thing.”

“It…” Remus swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “It would be a bit rude to throw you out like that, don’t you think?”

Sirius flashed him a quick grin. “You’ve done ruder things,” he said. His voice was utterly free of suggestion aside from a light veneer of teasing, but Remus’s stomach clenched in on itself, anyway.

“Still,” Remus said. “What kind of friend would that make me?”

Their eyes connected, for a long moment. Remus looked away first.

“That’s true,” Sirius said. “You could never be a bad friend to me.”

Remus couldn’t meet his gaze again. He didn’t have to, to know that Sirius was still staring at him.

-

Remus wasn’t too happy about leaving Sirius alone at home during the day, if he was being completely honest with himself. If Sirius was damned to a life stuck in a flat that was already too small for one person, it seemed only fair that someone kept him company through it all. But there wasn’t nearly enough food in the house, not when Remus had spent the last few months of his life paying very little attention to his own needs let alone anyone else’s, and more importantly they couldn’t afford to cut themselves off from the outside world right now. There was too much work to be done.

So Remus left to get them food and information, and when he returned in the evening he found Sirius curled up in a chair by the windowsill, face turned toward the darkening sky beyond the glass. His fingers were tapping against his leg in an impatiently erratic rhythm, foot bouncing up and down. No surprise; he’d never been someone who found staying in one place easy even during the best of times.

“Got the paper,” Remus said, tossing  _ The Daily Prophet _ down on the sitting room table. “Not that it contains anything useful. Could have seen that one coming from a mile or ten away.”

“And word from Dumbledore?” Sirius said, unmoving.

Remus tried to smile at him sympathetically, which felt kind of useless when he could only direct it to the back of Sirius’s head. “Not yet,” he said. “The Hogwarts term is finishing up, though, so I’m certain the Order will become active very soon.”

That was enough to make Sirius perk up a little, it seemed, because he turned around to look at Remus with excitement in his eyes. It was an expression that felt foreign, now, although years ago it wouldn’t have been. 

“You missed being in the Order, didn’t you?” Sirius said, a hushed sort of thrill in his tone.

Remus shrugged his coat off and hung it by the door. “A bit,” he admitted. “Aside from teaching at Hogwarts last year, I…” 

He paused to consider how  _ I don’t think I’ve done anything worthwhile since then  _ would sound out loud. Probably as good as  _ I haven’t ever felt like I was part of something I actually belonged to _ . Which was to say, not good at all. 

“I haven’t gotten out of the house as much as I’d like,” he finished lamely. From the intensity of Sirius’s gaze, he had the uncomfortable feeling that what he’d almost said was clear in his words, anyway. “I don’t particularly miss Voldemort being back, though.”

At that, Sirius’s expression darkened. “Still,” he said. “We must do what we can. And if that means we fight - I’m ready.”

Remus didn’t have the heart to point out that the likelihood of Sirius being assigned missions with the Order when the price on his head was still so high was currently at a depressing all time low. Not that he didn’t think Sirius couldn’t figure that one out for himself. He just figured the reminder was the last thing Sirius needed from him right now.

Instead, he smiled at Sirius weakly. “Of course,” he said. “I am, too.”

Sirius stood up, stretching his arms above his head. “I assume that’s dinner, then,” he said, nodding his chin toward the bags in Remus’s hands.

“Astute observation,” Remus said. “Join me in the kitchen?”

“Not like I have anything better to do,” Sirius said with a snort. “Let’s go make dinner, then, and while you’re chopping up onions and carrots you can tell me all about being a professor at Hogwarts. I’m curious, honestly, what it’s like on the other side of things. I always figured if any of us would do something like that it’d be  _ you _ .”

There was something warm and gentle in his voice, despite the teasing nature of his words, something that sounded a little like fondness. Remus noted the way it settled in the pit of his stomach, how familiar it felt, how unused to it he was all at once. The twisting of his gut felt like exercising a muscle he hadn’t used in years.

He shook his head, as much a motion to clear his head as it was a show of exasperation. “I already told you all about it,” he said. “Did you not read my letters? Sirius, I’m hurt. I spent so much time on them.”

Sirius tilted his head and smiled, crooked and roguish and devastating in his typical Sirius-ish way. And it was so uncharacteristically youthful, so reminiscent of the way he’d smiled when they were boys who hadn’t yet fully known what love and loss and death truly meant but who believed that they did, the sheer potency of it very nearly knocked Remus off his feet.

“Tell me again,” Sirius said. “I want to hear it in person.”

The corner of his mouth curled into something devilish, nearly wicked.

_ Jesus _ , Remus thought, lungs seizing in his chest.

And for a brilliant, glorious moment he knew - he  _ knew _ \- what it meant for Sirius Black to leave him truly breathless.

Bloody hell. It’d been forever.

He knew, too, in this moment, standing there in his own sitting room and frozen in place under the sheer force of a single smile:

This was a feeling he’d hungered for. And he hadn’t even known it until the very second he felt it again.

-

Dinner was a simple affair, something that was easy to prepare and didn’t require any sort of fancy ingredients or knifework skills. Out of necessity Remus had learned to cook quite decently over the years, but it had never been his favorite part of keeping himself alive. Though admittedly, things were a bit different when there was someone else he was cooking for. Knowing Sirius would soon eat his food, would share the experience of making it, too, even if he only stood in the kitchen next to Remus to needle him with teasing remarks that didn’t actually needle him, even if he only stood there and smiled, wide and lopsided and heartstoppingly genuine - 

Yes, things were different, indeed.

“You’re never going to make yourself useful, are you?” Remus said, wiping at his brow as he stuck the potatoes into the oven.

Sirius fished a morsel of meat from the pan on the stove. “You seem to be doing a decent enough job on your own. Wouldn’t want me slowing you down, would you?”

“That’s not properly cooked yet,” Remus chided, though there was no real bite to it. “Do you want to make yourself ill?”

Sirius shrugged and stuck the whole piece into his mouth. “I’ve eaten worse,” he said, voice slightly garbled through his chewing. It was kind of disgusting. But so very like him.

“Right.” Remus leaned against the counter, crossing his arms across his chest. “Some things never change, truly. You were just like this when we were sixteen, too.”

Sirius grinned broadly. “What do you mean? I’m the best sous chef you’ve ever had.”

“Oh, that’s what we’re calling it now, is it?” Remus could already feel the smile forming itself on his face, unbidden. “I suppose it is for the best. The one time I ever let you actually help me, James’ mum couldn’t get the stains off her ceiling for a solid week and a half.”

Sirius snorted softly. “That was a good summer, though, wasn’t it? Even if we were only there for a few weeks.”

Here they were, then, talking about their past in a way that only seemed inevitable.

But frankly it hurt far less than Remus had thought it would.

“Do you remember how James was learning to play the guitar?” Remus huffed out a laugh. “Hardly ever put it down the whole time.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “ _ Trying _ to learn to play, more like. I swear, he probably slept with the blasted thing. Fancied himself a muggle rockstar, it was absolutely ridiculous.”

“And what about you?” Remus raised his eyebrows. “You strutting around the place in your leather jacket and your biker gloves when it was downright boiling outside.”

“I did not  _ strut _ ,” Sirius scoffed. “I swaggered. There’s a difference.”

“I guess at least you had a motorbike to lend yourself some credibility.” Remus tapped his chin. “What happened to it, anyway?”

Sirius waved his hand vaguely. “Ah, I suppose Hagrid still has it, from…”

He trailed off, and Remus couldn’t pretend he didn’t know why. Not when Sirius wouldn’t meet his eyes, for once.

“I see,” Remus said evenly.

“Perhaps it’s for the best, anyway,” Sirius said with an easy shrug. “Under the current circumstances, it would probably get far more use with him than with me.”

Remus rubbed at his forearm as he turned toward the steak on the stove. “Perhaps,” he said.

Some time later, they sat down at the table with their food. With Sirius hunched over his plate and not leaning back in his seat, it was becoming increasingly apparent how cramped the table actually was, with barely enough space on the surface for their plates and their cups and their elbows. Remus could have sworn their knees knocked together once or twice, though if they did no one ever said anything about it.

Sirius swallowed down a mouthful of steak. “You’re better than I remember,” he said.

Remus’s eyes flew to him.

Sirius cocked an eyebrow in response. “At cooking, I mean,” he said, wiping at his mouth. “You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”

Remus looked down at his plate. “I suppose that’s what happens in thirteen years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some things don’t change,” Remus said quietly. “But some things do.”

The ensuing silence felt brittle as a matchstick. He glanced at Sirius; looked away again. He felt the desire to explain himself like an itch in a hard to reach place - and that wasn’t really a surprise, was it? Not when he’d spent half his teenage years wanting to say all the words to Sirius he could, even if he hardly knew what any of them were - yet once more, like all the other times, the words just wouldn’t come. 

He should have been used to it by now.

Sirius put his fork down with a clatter. Not a particularly loud noise, but it was enough to jar Remus out of his thoughts.

“Can I ask you something?”

Remus put down his own fork. “What is it?” 

He couldn’t meet Sirius’s eyes, though he had an idea what they might look like.

Sirius inhaled sharply. “Why are you so careful around me?”

A long, wretched pause.

“What?” Remus said, finally.

“Don’t play dumb,” Sirius said. It wasn’t an angry sentence, nor was it mocking. There was only weariness in those words, which was somehow worse. “I know you. I know what it’s like when you’re holding something back.”

Remus swallowed. “I’m not trying to hide anything from you, if that’s what you’re trying to insinuate.”

“I didn’t mean in terms of secrets,” Sirius said impatiently. “I meant - I meant in terms of  _ you _ .”

He clenched his hand, resting on the table, into a fist. Remus watched as the skin of his knuckles turned white.

“You still think it, don’t you?” Sirius whispered.

Remus blinked helplessly at him. “Think what?”

“James and Lily, and all those Muggles…” Sirius let out a shaky breath. “You heard me that night, I know you did. And I meant it.”

_ I as good as killed them. _

Yes. Remus remembered.

“You really think I blame you, still?” He couldn’t keep his voice from trembling, annoyingly enough.

“Why not? I do,” Sirius said, and now he sounded horribly nonchalant about the whole affair. Like he was saying something completely normal. “Every day, I think it. I think about how Harry doesn’t have any family to speak of, because James and Lily are dead, and how Peter’s still alive, and how you - how you...”

He didn’t finish that sentence. Remus was ashamed to realize he was grateful for it.

“God, Remus,” Sirius said dully. “All that time, you thought you’d lost all of us.”

“Do you…” Remus took in a breath. “Do you think I hate you?” 

He looked up and met Sirius’s gaze, at last.

He had to.

“You’d have a right to it,” Sirius said. He didn’t look away, either.

“No,” Remus said. “I don’t - I could never.”

Sirius barked out a hollow laugh. “Right.”

Remus went cold at the sound of that word, that horrible, empty word. Because he knew what it meant; he knew it with utter certainty.

For Sirius not to believe him when he said that - that cut deeper than he realized words could go.

But he was being honest. He didn’t know how to be any other way with Sirius, no matter what Sirius seemed to think. He could never hate him. Even then, during those thirteen long and aching years - even then, he didn’t.

He used to hate himself for it. Somehow, that had always come easier to him, directing all that anger and bitterness and loathing to himself rather than toward anyone else. Back when he and Sirius were friends, and after, too. It used to drive him absolutely mad that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything else with all that burning feeling inside of him.  _ He’s a traitor, _ he’d whispered to himself, over and over, day after day.  _ He as good as killed your best friend. He as good as killed them both. He’s the reason you’re alone, all alone in this wretched world. _

And he said it so many times that sometimes he felt more certain of this truth than he knew his own self. Those days after a full moon when he’d come to and feel absolutely sick with himself, his body a prison and his mind on fire with all that he’d done, all the pain he’d caused with no one in the world left to stop him. Those nights he’d lay wide awake, plagued by his worst thoughts and fears and knowing that none of it would be as bad as what faced him when he fell asleep, because when he fell asleep, the nightmares that came to him in the dark - those were real. He never dreamed of things that weren’t real.

The knowledge that Sirius was forever lost to him, or worse that the man he thought he knew had never even existed to be found in the first place - sometimes it was all that helped him understand what had happened ten, eleven, twelve years prior. To know that it wasn’t his fault, because it was Sirius’s. And still, despite his very best efforts, he couldn’t bring himself to hate him. It just wouldn’t come.

Small wonder, then, that he couldn’t do it now, either, when that one truth he thought he knew had been utterly and thoroughly decimated, and in the end it turned out it was his fault, after all.

“Sirius,” he started, and faltered, because it hit him the moment the name left his lips. He didn’t know how to say it. He just didn’t know. He didn’t even know where to start. How could he, when he’d never tried before?

The silence stretched onward, thick and suffocating.

In the end, it was Sirius who broke it, who huffed out another quiet, humorless laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “Stupid thing for me to bring up, isn't it?”

Remus watched, dumbstruck, as Sirius leaned forward, putting his face in his hands and letting out a heavy sigh. 

“God,” he said. “I’ve been stuck here for less than a day and I’ve already lost it.”

The statement tore a laugh out of Remus, though it wasn’t funny at all. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know how hard it must be for you.”

Sirius straightened. “Oh, it’s not so bad, really,” he said, smiling faintly. Small though it was, fragile as it was, the sight of it was still something immeasurably precious to Remus. Something welled up in his throat at the thought, and he couldn’t make it stop.

“No?” Remus said weakly.

“I’ve got you, now,” Sirius said, and he said it so simply, so easily, that Remus felt something inside of him twist, and crack.

“I suppose that’s true,” Remus said.

Sirius reached over the table, clapped his hand on Remus’s shoulder and grinned so widely it looked like it should hurt.

“Of course it is,” he said.

Of course it was.

Before Remus could think better of it, he reached up and covered Sirius’s hand with his own.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. And then, another bold move he didn’t let himself overthink - he let his thumb swipe over Sirius’s knuckles.

Something flashed across Sirius’s face, too quickly gone to identify. Sirius pulled his hand from under Remus’s grip, leaning back in his chair with an inscrutable expression on his face. 

And it was then that the shock set in, at his own audacity. Remus bit his lip and looked down at the table.

“I should be telling you that,” Sirius said with a short laugh.

He shouldn’t, but Remus hadn’t the strength the argue. He shot a glance at Sirius. “For what?”

“For everything,” Sirius said.

Remus had a feeling he might say something that dramatic.

“You’ve said enough,” he said.

Now there was no hiding the surprise on Sirius’s face. Remus took it all in, his wide eyes, his slack jaw. It was almost refreshing, to be the one who was a step ahead for a change.

And he couldn’t help it; he grinned.

And Sirius grinned back, barely hesitating at all.

And it was honest; it was breathtaking. It was fucking beautiful.

It was almost possible to forget the strangeness that had hung in the air between them just moments before.

Almost.

-

It wasn’t long before they finished dinner. They didn’t really talk about anything important for the rest of the night, not when Sirius made tea for both of them, not when Remus put on the radio as he washed the dishes, not when they parted ways for bed and Sirius gave him a jaunty little salute before closing the sitting room door shut behind him. Honestly, Remus didn’t mind. Talking about everything, and then talking about nothing - that was something they’d done a lot of when they were younger. It felt almost like things were normal again.

Not that they really were normal, if normal meant “back to the way things used to be”. But still, there was a rhythm to it. A sense of routine, one that seemed to fall naturally into place despite the fact that they never really talked about it. Remus felt it keenly as the rest of the week inched by. How Sirius always managed to wake up before Remus, somehow; how there was always the smell of breakfast in the kitchen in the morning; the silence that weaved comfortably around them when Remus read the paper and Sirius dozed off in his dog form at his feet; the long meandering conversations that accompanied their meals. It was still a bit bizarre, the feeling of getting used to another person in this space with him. But it was less bizarre than he’d thought it’d be.

He said as much sometimes, to Sirius. “I thought it would feel strange to share this flat, when it’s just been me for so long,” he confessed once over breakfast.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at him. “Does it?”

“No,” Remus said. “It feels right.”

Sirius burst into a grin. “Wow, what a ringing endorsement. I’m glad you think I make a good flatmate.”

“But you feel it too, don’t you?”

Sirius scarfed down a generous helping of eggs. “I suspect if I had to wait for Dumbledore’s word by myself, I’d already have lost my entire mind. But it’s better, to have someone to talk to.”

“Even if it’s me?” Remus said, a weak attempt at a joke.

Sirius gave him a long, withering look, apparently not bothering to dignify that with an answer. Which Remus supposed he understood. It really was a bad joke.

It used to frighten him, how easy being next to Sirius was. When they were teenagers it scared the shit out of him for reasons he could hardly even articulate to himself. But it didn’t, anymore. He’d lived through things that were far more terrifying. He’d survived through all of them.

But how strange, really, that over a decade ago he’d banished Sirius from his heart and swore never to look back, but now here they were once more, sharing their food and this house and the silence; and Sirius’s friendship was one of the precious few things he could still call his own from back then, from an era so far removed from the person Remus was now it almost felt like a past life. 

And not so long ago, it was the very last thing he’d expected to make it this far. 

-

“Dumbledore wrote, finally,” Remus said, kicking the door shut behind him and brandishing a letter in his hand.

“Oh, excellent,” Sirius said. He stood up with a great big stretch and reached for the envelope. “What’s he said?”

“Order meeting next week,” Remus said. “Location to be determined. I suppose there’s not too many places that could work. Imagine the Order trying to gather in Dumbledore’s office. That wouldn’t arouse suspicion at all.”

Sirius tugged the letter out of the envelope and swept his eyes over the looping scrawl. “Finally,” he said, with relish.

“You haven’t even been here for a week,” Remus said dryly. “Am I really that dull?”

Sirius snorted. “We’ve been over this. Of course you aren’t.”

They had, but it still sent a stupidly pleasant thrill tingling through Remus’s gut to hear it. God, sometimes he really did feel like a schoolboy again.

He threw himself down in the chair by the window and unfolded the paper he had tucked in his elbow. He hadn’t had much time to look at it earlier when he’d picked it up, so he was expecting more of the same stories  _ The Daily Prophet _ had been publishing over the last few days, which was to say, nothing he’d actually take seriously.

Instead, Sirius’s mugshot from over a decade ago grinned up at him, alongside a blaring announcement that the Ministry had bumped up the price on his head by over two thousand galleons.

“Fuck,” Remus said.

He looked up at Sirius, whose eyebrows shot up. “What? What’s wrong?”

Remus gripped the paper tightly, so that it started to crumple in his fists. “The Ministry’s doubled down on their search for you.”

“Oh,” Sirius said. “That’s all?”

“They’re - they’re  _ framing _ you. They’re using you as a scapegoat.” Remus didn’t know why he said it with such disbelief, such anger. Sirius was right, wasn’t he? What did this even matter, in the grand scheme of things? What was two thousand Galleons compared to Harry’s safety, and the Order’s war, and Sirius’s freedom?

But he couldn’t stop himself from feeling it.

Sirius scratched his head. “Well,” he said. “Nothing I’m not used to, anyway. I’ve spent nearly half my life being the Ministry’s scapegoat.”

Remus threw the paper down on the table and shot out of his seat, pacing agitatedly across the length of the sitting room. “You can’t be flippant about this, Sirius.”

Stupid. It was such a stupid thing to be angry about. He knew it the moment he said it, the moment he let the heat of it leak into his veins. Sirius was right; this was nothing new. He’d had just as much time as Sirius to get used to it.

But he hadn’t, was the thing. He’d believed this lie, this horrible lie, for almost that whole time. It’d been easy for him to do so, hadn’t it? It’d been far too easy. To take the side of the majority against the one, to swallow up the stories, to never question anything about it. More than that, it’d been  _ convenient _ . Just as it was convenient for the Ministry now, to pull out Sirius Black’s name whenever they needed a distraction, needed the public to believe they were actually doing something worthwhile.

And here Sirius was, not caring, never caring, it seemed, because after all the shit that had happened he still believed Remus was a good enough person to be friends with, even though for the longest time Remus hadn’t even bothered to believe in  _ him _ .

Bloody hell. He was so angry he felt sick with it.

“I’m not being flippant,” Sirius said indignantly. “It’s just that this isn’t the worst thing they’ve done to me.”

And that was all it took. Just as quickly as it had swept over him, the anger left, leaving behind nothing but the bitter ashes of guilt clinging to the back of his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Remus said. He rubbed at his temples. What the hell was he even thinking right now? Was he going mad?

Sirius walked to the window and pressed his palm to the glass. It was an oddly contemplative gesture for someone Remus rarely thought of as prone to introspection. But it was excruciating to Remus in this moment, with his heart still thundering in his ribcage and Sirius infuriatingly, maddeningly calm in his movements, and his silence.

“It’s okay,” he said. “They can’t touch me here. Not when I’ve got you.”

He said that calmly, too,  so calmly and so simply as if he’d never had a single reason to believe otherwise that the anger came roaring back to life in Remus’s chest, turning his blood to flames.

“Can you stop that?” Remus spat out. “Can you stop putting so much fucking  _ faith _ in me?”

Sirius turned, alarm widening his eyes. “Moony - ”

“I don’t deserve it,” Remus said.

“Moony.” And now Sirius’s expression turned sympathetic, which was nigh on intolerable to Remus. The last thing he wanted was  _ pity _ .

“Do you remember?” Remus said. “A few nights ago, when you said I had the right to hate you?”

“Moony…”

“If I have the right to hate you,” Remus said shakily, “you have just as much of a right to hate me.”

He forced himself not to look away. Not when Sirius’s eyes widened, not when his breath hitched in his throat audibly. Not when the very color left his face, slowly but surely.

“What?” Sirius whispered.

“Do you hate me for not believing in you?” Remus pressed on. It had never seemed more important to get his point across. “For abandoning you? For letting them take you to Azkaban without a trial? For taking so long to learn the truth and accept it?”

“I…” Sirius didn’t continue, but he didn’t have to. For once, he didn’t have to. Remus knew his answer; he could see it in his eyes. He could feel it in his bones.

“ _ That’s _ what I deserve,” Remus said. “Because you never did a single thing wrong. But I  _ let _ you go to Azkaban. I was  _ glad _ for it. Because I couldn’t - I didn’t…”

He faltered at the look in Sirius’s eyes.

“Never did a single thing wrong?” Sirius said softly. “What the hell do you know about that?”

“You didn’t.” Remus choked on the words. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened, Sirius. For what Peter did, for trusting in your friends - ”

_ The way I didn’t _ , he intended to say, but Sirius didn’t let him finish.

“Don’t  _ you _ dare tell me how to feel!” he yelled. “I don’t understand why you feel this way, anyway! You’ve no idea what it’s like to carry around the truth, the knowledge that you destroyed the lives of the people you cared about for over a decade - ”

“I don’t know how it feels?” Remus shouted. “I’m a fucking werewolf!” 

He strided up to Sirius with half a mind to shake him, maybe knock some sense to him, but Sirius froze as he seized the front of his shirt, froze in front of his very eyes. Stiffened like a board. Face pale, mouth parted. So Remus froze in place too, inches away from him, and his fists tightened in the fabric of his shirt.

They were so close Remus could hear the ragged, shallow pace of his breathing. Like he was struggling to force the air into his lungs.

“I told myself that you were a traitor,” Remus whispered.

Sirius flinched. “Moony, you don’t have to - ”

“I told myself that you were a traitor,” Remus said, voice rising steadily in volume with each word. “That you never really gave a damn about us. About me. I tried to convince myself I didn’t love you for well over a decade, for half my bloody life, and you think I don’t know how it  _ feels _ ?”

The words rang through the room, reverberated through his chest with the power of a truth that had never been said out loud. Slowly, it dawned on him, sunk in like an anchor thrown into the sea, what exactly he’d just said out loud.

He saw it sink in Sirius’s eyes, too.

He wrenched his hands from Sirius’s shirt. Sirius didn’t move.

And all was quiet now. Awfully, terribly quiet.

He didn’t know how long they stood there, staring at each other, still and silent. He couldn’t read the look on Sirius’s face, hardly even knew what he was feeling inside of himself. He just knew he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t walk away; not even if he wanted to.

Not without hearing what Sirius had to say first.

At last, Sirius swallowed. Remus’s eyes flickered downward, caught by the motion of his throat.

“Did it work?” Sirius said in a hushed whisper, like he was afraid of what would break if he spoke any louder.

“I…” Remus looked back into his eyes, caught by their dark intensity. “What?”

“Did you convince yourself you didn’t love me?”

Something like resignation settled over Remus’s shoulders.

“What do you think?” he said with a humorless laugh. It wasn’t a joke, but he found it horribly funny that even now, when they stood so close to the point of no return, after all those years he’d practiced burying the words and the feelings deep inside him in a place that nothing and no one could ever unlock, he still couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

But he knew Sirius understood.

When had he not?

So he waited for Sirius to turn away. To scoff, to laugh, or worse, to say nothing at all. He was ready for it. He’d been preparing for almost his whole life.

Sirius didn’t turn away.

He brought his hands to Remus’s face, fingers cupping his jaw carefully, so gently Remus could barely feel them against his skin, but the touch shocked him, anyway, shocked him to his core until he could feel nothing inside him but his own heartbeat.

“Oh,” Sirius said, and there was awe in his voice, wondrous, breathless awe, and it was there in his eyes, too, his endlessly warm eyes.

Remus didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to.

Because Sirius leaned in, and kissed him.

It shouldn’t have surprised him to learn that Sirius was as careful with his kisses as he was with his touches. He was slow; achingly slow. And tender in a way that tore at Remus’s heart, tender in the way Sirius’s thumbs stroked over his cheeks, the way his warm lips parted sweetly and softly under Remus’s. 

But it did surprise him; it made him weak in the knees, so that he had to bury his hands in the fabric of Sirius’s shirt again, and cling onto him for dear life. Because this moment would kill him, he was sure; and hadn’t he always known, one way or another, that Sirius Black would be the end of him?

At some point Sirius pulled away and leaned his forehead against Remus’s, so carefully and so slowly it didn’t feel like a loss.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for?” Remus whispered, because he had barely any breath in his lungs, and because he only had the strength for this one question right now, even though behind it were a thousand more.

“I didn’t mean it,” Sirius said. “When I said you had no idea - that was a bit daft of me, wasn’t it?”

Remus choked out a laugh. It wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t help it.

“And I’m sorry,” Sirius said, “I’m sorry you had to carry it by yourself all this time. You shouldn’t have had to.”

_ It’s not your fault _ , Remus wanted to say.  _ It’s not anyone’s fault. _

He said nothing at all, in the end. He just wrapped his arms around Sirius’s neck, and pulled him close.

And Sirius buried his face in Remus’s shoulder, and he knew that he didn’t have to.

“I’ll carry it with you, now,” Sirius said into his ear. “I promise.”

And Remus believed him, simply because at this point it was far easier to do that than it was to not.

-

“I’ve an idea,” Sirius said, sometime later in the darkness of Remus’s bedroom.

Remus hummed tunelessly. “What kind of idea?”

“I’m going to offer my mother’s house to Dumbledore,” Sirius said. “To use for the Order’s headquarters.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re not exactly fond of that place.”

“Yes, well.” It was too dark for Remus to see Sirius’s nonchalant shrug, here, but he could envision it all too clearly. “I doubt he’s going to let me go on missions, if he won’t let me go out now. This way, I’ll actually be of some use to the Order. And I can make sure the rest of you bastards aren’t leaving me out of the proceedings.”

“You’ll be living there, then, I presume, if Dumbledore agrees.” Remus wondered how obvious the disappointment was in his voice.

Quite obvious, apparently, because seconds later, a hand nudged its way into his, and squeezed. “I had another idea, related to that.”

Remus raised his eyebrows, futile a gesture as it was. “Do share.”

“You could come live with me,” Sirius said. “If you want.”

There was silence, for a long moment, as Remus tried to process the words he’d just heard. Tried to wrap his head around moving out of this tiny, wretched flat, and being around other people all the time, and being around Sirius all the time.

“Only if you want,” Sirius said quickly.

Remus smiled.

“I want to,” he said.

Sirius brought Remus’s hand to his mouth and pressed a long, lingering kiss to his palm.

“Thank you,” he breathed, as if Remus was the one doing Sirius a favor, and not the other way around.

Or maybe that was just how love worked. Maybe when you loved someone, every decision you made with them was selfish and selfless all in the same breath.

He had a funny feeling that that was true about a great many things he’d done for Sirius since nearly the very day they’d met.

“How long have you been wanting to do this, anyway?” Remus asked.

“What’s ‘this’? Living with you?”

“No,” Remus said, and he leaned forward to press a brief kiss to Sirius’s mouth. “This.”

A pause. “About as long as you, I’d expect.”

Remus had to suppress a laugh at that. “There’s no way.”

“Oh, yeah? Would you bet your life on that?”

Remus leaned forward, so that his forehead rested lightly against Sirius’s chest. “I wouldn’t bet anything, right now.”

“No,” Sirius said. “Me neither.”

“But you do know that, right?” Remus tilted his head forward; skimmed his nose against Sirius’s collarbone. “I’ve loved you a long time.”

“Well.” Sirius squeezed his hand again. “I know that now.”

“I should have said it sooner,” Remus said softly.

Something warm pressed into the crown of Remus’s head. Sirius’s mouth, he thought.

“Do you want to know something I’ve been wanting to say to you?” Sirius said into his hair.

Remus shivered at the feeling of Sirius’s breath floating across his scalp. “And what’s that?”

“I should have trusted you,” Sirius said.

“Back then, you mean.”

Sirius’s other hand came up behind Remus, arm curling around his back as his fingertips ghosted over his naked shoulders.

“I think that’s my biggest regret,” he said. “I regret not trusting you more than I regret trusting Peter.”

Remus closed his eyes. “But you trust me now.”

“More than anything,” Sirius said.

He said it so simply and so honestly that Remus’s throat closed up.

“There’s a lot I’ve been wanting to say to you, too,” he whispered.

Sirius splayed his fingers across Remus’s shoulder blades, pressing his palm into Remus’s back.

“Save it for the morning,” he said. “We’ve got time.”

“Do we?”

Without warning, Sirius rolled on top of Remus, knees flush against his hips, and kissed him, kissed him so long and hard that for a long and heady moment Remus could almost pretend nothing else outside of this moment was real, that this bed, and this darkness, and this feeling of Sirius on and above and around him was a world within a world that could exist, just between them, for the rest of forever.

“Yes, Remus,” Sirius said against his lips. “We do.”

And it was easy to let those words fall inside him, and settle in his gut. It was easy to tangle his fingers in Sirius’s hair and press him close, closer than he even imagined possible. It was easy to hold onto him and to let go of everything else.

This felt closer to the truth than Remus had ever come.

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve never made an announcement in the fic notes quite like this before, but I figured I kinda had to say it for myself? Here goes:
> 
> This is going to be my last fic, at least for a while. I want to spend some time focusing on original work, as well as some stuff in my personal life. I anticipate I might come back to fic some day just because i love it so damn much, but I need to give myself some time and space for a while, and I’m saying this here so I can make that space. So, to those who have supported my fic for the last 3 and a half years, and to those who have only just stumbled upon my words, and to all those in between - all i can say is, thank you so, so much for taking the time to read my fics. I don’t even have the words to express how much that means to me. <3
> 
> If you want to keep in touch you can find me on [tumblr](https://canonicallyanxious.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/Canonlyanxious) [i have a twitter now???] if you’d like. Otherwise, that’s all I’ve got for now. Cheers, friends!


End file.
